Democratic Party
The Democratic Party is the longest-lived political party in the United States. The Democratic Party traces its origins to the Democratic-Republican Party, founded by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and other influential opponents of the Federalists in 1792. However, the modern Democratic party truly arose in the 1830, with the election of Andrew Jackson in 1828 over John Quincy Adams. Since the division of the Republican Party in the election of 1912, it has gradually positioned itself to the left of the Republican Party on economic and social issues. Democratic Party in "Election Day" The Democratic Party held onto the presidency in 2016, but could not capture the House, and had to settle for a 50/50 split in the Senate.Alternate Peace, loc. 632-697. Democratic Party in "The Fillmore Shoggoth" The three-way battle between Eugene McCarthy, Robert Kennedy, and Hubert Humphrey for the "soul" of the Democratic Party in the Spring of 1968, was seen as a "portent". Another such portent was an iceberg that had broken from Antarctica Ross Ice Shelf in 1966 and floated north, successfully arriving on the San Francisco coast in Spring 1968. Democratic Party in The Guns of the South The 1864 schism in the Republican Party allowed the Democrats to retake the White House by a plurality in the November general election. President Horatio Seymour then instituted an imperialist policy, conquering the Canadas and other territories away from Great Britain, and salving the national pride of a Union which had been badly bloodied by the Second American Revolution. Democratic Party in The Hot War As the majority party in government at the outbreak of World War III in January 1951, the Democratic Party and President Harry Truman were subjected to heavy criticism from the Republican Party thoughout the war.Bombs Away, pg. 91, hc. As 1952 was an election, this criticism intensified throughout the year as several members of the GOP sought their party's nomination for the presidency.Ibid., pg. 386. By late 1951, the leading candidate appeared to be Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, a polarizing and demagogic figure.Fallout, HC, pg. 325. Painfully aware of how unpopular he was, Truman announced in October, 1951 that he would not run again. The Democratic field soon became even more crowded than the GOP one, with several contenders announcing their own bids, including Vice President Alben Barkley, Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson, Truman-aid W. Averell Harriman, and Senators Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota and Estes Kefauver of Tennessee.Ibid., pg. 246, HC. While each man had his strengths and weaknesses, by spring of 1952, there wasn't a clear Democratic front-runner the way McCarthy had become for the GOP. The course of the war rendered the competition largely moot: most of the prospective candidates in both parties were killed in the Soviet Union's atomic bombing of Washington, DC (which claimed the lives of Barkley, Humphrey, and Kefauver), New York City (which claimed Harriman after the Empire State Building toppled onto his hotel during the bombing), and Boston in May 1952. Only Stevenson, safely located in Illinois, survived.Ibid., e-book, loc. 6782.Armistice, pg. 5, HC. While Truman oversaw the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in June 1952,pgs. 73-78, ebook. and the end of the war in JulyIbid., pgs. 155-157. and August,Ibid., pgs 277-280. it was clear that the Democrats would be leaving power, especially after Truman took the step of suspending the presidential election of 1952 in light of the lack of a viable Electoral College.Ibid. pg 158. However, Congressional elections did take place, and the Republicans did pick up the majority.Ibid. pg. 394. Democratic Party in ''Joe Steele'' The populist stance of the Democratic Party became a vehicle for Joe Steele's rise to the Presidency, and his subsequent imposition of tyranny in the United States. Steele first rose to national prominence as a Democratic Congressman from Fresno.''Joe Steele'', pg. 46. In 1932, Steele and New York governor Franklin D. Roosevelt became the front runners for the party's presidential nomination. The Democratic National Convention was held at the Chicago Stadium in Chicago. Steele touted his Four Year Plan, which included collectivizing farms, updating the country's power grid, and nationalizing the banks. Roosevelt pledged his New Deal plan.Ibid., pgs. 2-3. Realizing he might lose the nomination, Steele arranged Vince Scriabin to have Roosevelt burned alive at Executive Mansion in Albany.Ibid., pg. 16-17.Ibid. pgs. 18-21. With his primary opponent gone, Steele became the party's presidential nominee, and won the 1932 election.Ibid., pgs. 22-27. From here on, Steele maintained a tight grip on the party. He broke opposition from his fellow Democrats through rough tactics and blackmail.See, e.g., ibid., pg. 58-59. He secured the nomination without opposition for the 1936 election, and handily won.Ibid., pg. 137. He continued to win his party's nomination for the next four elections thereafter, even though running for more than two terms was unprecedented.Ibid., pg. 225. He controlled the Presidency and the Democratic Party until his death on March 5, 1953.Ibid. pgs. 403-406. Democratic Party in The Man With the Iron Heart While the Democratic Party had held power since 1932, steering the country through the New Deal and World War II, the rise of the German Freedom Front in 1945 and the substantial casualties it inflicted on American troops helped turn public opinion away from the Democrats. Despite the exhortations of President Harry Truman, the opposition Republican party gained control of Congress in the elections of 1946. Democratic Party in "News From the Front" The Democratic Party was fractured early in 1942, as the American public and press turned against President Franklin D. Roosevelt's handling of World War II. Vice President Henry Wallace publicly broke with Roosevelt, questioning the president's veracity on the war in the first months of the year. By June, Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Hatton Sumners (both of whom were Democrats) had met to discuss initiating impeachment proceedings against Roosevelt. Democratic Party in "Powerless" The Democratic Party was legal in the West Coast People's Democratic Republic, but it was not favored the way the Communist Party was. Moreover, the party didn't function as an opposition party. Consequently, the Democrats were viewed with the same kind of skepticism that the CPWCPDR was.Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction September/October, 2018, ebook. Democratic Party in Southern Victory Prior to the War of Secession, the Democratic Party was friendly to Southern interests, and after the war, advocated taking a soft line against the Confederate States. This position was ultimately rejected by American voters with the 1880 election of Republican James G. Blaine to the Presidency over incumbent Samuel Tilden. Following the Second Mexican War, and the marginalization of the Republican Party with former President Abraham Lincoln's defection to the Socialist Party, the Democrats were able to outflank the Republicans on the issue of Remembrance after Benjamin Butler left for the Democrats and took the anti-Confederate hardliners with him, and they adopted a hard line foreign policy and the gearing of the entire US society to nationalism and revanchism. This plan came to fruition in the Great War. US politics stabilized as a two-party system with the Democrats to the Right and the Socialists to the Left. The now moderate Republicans survived as a rump party having a few representatives in Congress but no hope of ever regaining power. Following the Great War, the Socialist Party got political mileage by attacking the Democrats' economic and labor policies. In 1920 President Theodore Roosevelt was defeated by Upton Sinclair while attempting to run for a third term. The two decades saw the Democrats and the Socialists trading power back and forth. While Sinclair's administration was successful, his Socialist successor, Hosea Blackford, was unable to effectively cope with the economic depression that took place after the stock market crash of 1929, and appeared weak in the Pacific War with Japan. Briefly, the Democrats were able to recapture power, gaining a majority in Congress in 1930, and electing a Democrat, Calvin Coolidge (whose term was served by Herbert Hoover upon Coolidge's pre-inauguration death from a heart attack on January 5, 1933) in 1932. But, when the Democrats appeared weak on the economic depression, the American public returned to the Socialists, electing Al Smith in 1936. However, the Democrats began to look more attractive when Jake Featherston became Confederate President and took an extremely hard line against the US. The Democrats opposed the Richmond Agreement brokered between Smith and Featherston in 1940, and the ensuing plebiscites in Sequoyah, Houston, and Kentucky. They were proven correct when Featherston used the Agreement as a casus belli to invade the US. However, as the Socialists supported the Second Great War with enthusiasm equal to that of the Democrats', taking advantage of the rising tide of nationalism in the US electorate proved difficult. Nonetheless, the Democrats were able to regain power after the Second Great War, despite the fact that the Socialists led the country to victory. In 1944, the Democrats gained a majority in Congress, and saw the election of Thomas Dewey to the office of the President. Democratic Party in State of Jefferson The Democrats of Jefferson were mostly tree-huggers and left-over hippies. In the 1980 primary, they were expected to vote for Senator Edward Kennedy over incumbent President Jimmy Carter. Democratic Party in The War That Came Early The Democratic Party held the upper hand in American politics during the late 1930s, and continued to do so in the early 1940s, with Democrat President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the White House, and Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. The Democrats tended towards an interventionist stance after the outbreak of the Second World War in October 1938, but the majority of the American public favored neutrality. Despite public opinion, Roosevelt was concerned by German expansion under Adolf Hitler. Thus, Roosevelt began guiding the country towards rearmament. He also made attempts to influence the course of the war without direct military involvement. In October 1939, with Germany retreating on the Western Front and stalled out on the Eastern Front, Roosevelt proposed that there be a general cease-fire, and that all boundaries be returned to the status quo ante bellum. Hitler rebuffed Roosevelt's suggestion.West and East, pg. 358. After this, Roosevelt, with the support of the Democratic Congress, sent arms to Britain and France, including a fleet of obsolete destroyers.The Big Switch, pg. 334. He also offered to mediate an end to the war between the Soviet Union and Japan. While the USSR readily accepted the offer, Japan did not, and the peace was bilateral.Ibid., pg. 296. In mid-1940, Roosevelt began his campaign for an unprecedented third term.Ibid., pg. 263. Concurrently, Britain and France reached a peace with Germany, and joined Germany in a war against the USSR. Disgusted, Roosevelt announced at speech in Philadelphia in October 1940, that the U.S. would no longer ship arms to Britain and France, and would additionally stop shipping scrap metal and oil to Japan until Japan left China.Ibid., pgs. 336-8. Despite the break with the two-term tradition, Roosevelt was able to win the presidential election of 1940 handily, defeating Republican Wendell Willkie and isolationist candidate Alf Landon.Ibid. pgs. 345-6. When Japan attacked the United States in January 1941, bi-partisanship increased, although the American people were still emphatically opposed to entering the European war.Coup d'Etat, Chapter 1. While the U.S. met set-back after set-back in the Pacific, the Democrats were able to hold a majority with some losses in the 1942 Congressional election.Two Fronts, pg. 199, HC. The so-called big switch didn't last. The pro-German government of Horace Wilson was toppled by the British military in the spring of 1941, and the new government re-declared war on Germany immediately.Ibid., pgs. 151-152. France followed suit at the end of the year, withdrawing from the Soviet Union and relaunching its war against Germany.Ibid. pgs. 389-395. Roosevelt resumed sending them supplies. On some occasions German U-boats attacked American ships. Nevertheless, American public opinion and Congress would not accept direct involvement in the European War, feeling that the war against Japan was quite enough.Two Fronts, pg. 155, HC. By 1944, the course of the war started heading in the U.S. After months of tension, Hitler decided to initiate war with the United States when German U-boats attacked several American merchant ships in March, 1944.Ibid., pgs. 269-70. The next month, Hitler was toppled by the Committee for the Salvation of the German Nation.Ibid., pg. 300. Concurrently, while Japan began the year with free reign to bomb Hawaii with relative impunity throughout 1942 and into 1943,Ibid., pgs. 166-168. even using biological weapons,Ibid., pgs. 279-282. by early 1944, a dramatic raid on Midway succeeded in driving the Japanese out.Last Orders, pgs. 191-194. As the war in Europe ended before the U.S. could fully involve itself, Roosevelt was able to keep his pledge of neutrality while the threat posed by Hitler was removed.Ibid, pg. 318. Roosevelt then established an alliance with the Soviet Union to facilitate a quick end to the war with Japan.Ibid., pgs. 345-346. Thus, by mid-1944, the Democratic Party seemed poised to retain power in the elections that November. Democratic Party in Worldwar The Democratic Party, under the leadership of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, had become the party of liberalism in the wake of the Great Depression. When World War II began, the Democrats were firmly in power in both the executive and the legislative branches. Nonetheless, the mood the country overall remained isolationist. However, the United States entered the war in December 1941, when tensions between the U.S. and Japan led to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. As the United States set its industrial base on a war-footing, World War II was interrupted by the Race Invasion. Although the Democrats were able to help steer the country through the war and maintain the country's sovereignty (at an admittedly high price), the mood of the country shifted in the years after the 1944 Peace of Cairo. By 1960, the Republican Party was viewed as the hardline party on the issue of national security, in anticipation of the arrival of the Race's Colonization Fleet. References }} * Category:OTL Political Parties Category:Election Day Category:The Fillmore Shoggoth Category:The Guns of the South Category:The Hot War Category:Joe Steele Category:The Man With the Iron Heart Category:News From the Front Category:Powerless Category:State of Jefferson Category:Southern Victory Category:The War That Came Early Category:Worldwar